On Tuesday, May 10, 2005, 10:04:22 AM, Henri wrote:
HS> Robin Berjon wrote:
>> Now we have xml:id which is a very neat addition to the XML toolset. It
>> makes an important chunk of what end-users find scary with XML go away.
>> An XML specification that simplifies XML, and you don't find that
>> special? ;-)
HS> Of course, the truly simple and pragmatic way would have been speccing
HS> that the attribute 'id' (not in a namespace) counts as an ID.
If you take a look at the TAG finding on ID for XML, that option (and
variations therof) was of course considered.
http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/xmlIDsemantics-32.html
Its option
5.1 Steal the string "id"
HS> (It's not like anyone uses an attribute named like that for any other
HS> purpose anyway. At least not to any significant extent.)
Hmm. And you happen to know that they would not mind.
If an attribute is called 'id' it is of type ID. If you want an
interoperable IDness then you must call your attribute id. If you
previously had attributes called id and you don't want them to be of
type ID, change their names.
This is a somewhat brutal solution, especially for any content that
already has attributes called 'id' that are not of type ID. On the
other hand, a very large percentage of existing XML usage does indeed
call its ID attributes 'id'. This solution is an XML language change.
--
Chris Lilley mailto:chris@w3.org
Chair, W3C SVG Working Group
W3C Graphics Activity Lead